Month: December 2016

What some have suspected has now been confirmed. The WIA overpaid Fred Swainston during his 7 ½ month engagement as National Office Manager; by a whopping $675 (48%) per week.

These are the facts which have been determined from open communications between the WIA Board and the WIA Reform Group:

At the August 2015 Board meeting the following resolution was passed:

With effect from Monday 17 August FS is to be paid as a contractor for the performance of duties delivering support to the WIA office. This rate ($2060 inc GST/ week) is equivalent to the current role and is to be implemented for a period of not more than six weeks. (Moved CP, Seconded RH)

The “current role” was paid $1385.20 per week.

At no point was a contract documented or signed between the WIA and Trainsafe. The “not more than six weeks” turned into seven and a half months.

It appears that Fred Swainston was not acting as a bona-fide contractor and the arrangement between the WIA and Fred Swainston did not satisfy the requirements of the Independent Contractors Act of 2006.

Apparently, according to Australian Tax Office guidelines, Fred Swainston was in fact filling the temporary role of Office Manager as an employee.

Paperwork, announcements and decisions around the appointment and ongoing role performed by Fred Swainston determines that he was an employee of the WIA and not a contractor.

In virtually every public statement, the President referred to Fred Swainston as filling a temporary role of office manager. Trainsafe was not mentioned.

On the basis of the above, the WIA paid a 48% premium to Fred Swainston over a seven month period.

Fred Swainston remained on the Board as Director and Vice President during this period.

The WIA’s accounting system (MYOB) was not maintained properly and financial and business systems fell into disrepair during this period.

As a result of the incorrect financial record keeping, it now appears the 2015 Financial Report presented at the AGM on Norfolk Island is incorrect and will need to be reworked.

The WIA now must resolve incorrect allowances for Goods & Services Tax, Superannuation Guarantee Contributions, Business Activity Statements and Pay As You Go withholding tax.

The 2015 Financial Report will need to be reworked, as will financial records from 2016. This is further work, expense and inconvenience for the WIA and its volunteer Treasurers.

The WIA is making arrangements to claim back the overpayments to Trainsafe. We estimate this to be in the order of $15,000-$17,000.

The WIA must demand Fred Swainston repays these over-payments.

Why did the board not oversee Mr Swainston’s performance and address the shortcomings much sooner?

Why has the President failed to take action on these matters?

Why was their no written employment contract?

Our WIA urgently needs a new board. The President must resign immediately. The other three directors must resign immediately. Please support the call for a General Meeting by reading and signing the letter at this link.

Many of your fellow members have already signed. Please make your voice heard for the good of our hobby. Please read the background material and call for these directors to step down. The more signatures we get, the stronger our message.

The President is failing the WIA miserably. The President and the Board of the WIA have known for weeks that members have been gathering 100 signatures calling on them to call a General Meeting to vote on the removal of four directors.

Are they proceeding to arrange that meeting or are they scheming behind the scenes to find some reason to avoid this obligation?

Many will also be aware that two WIA Directors (Fred Swainston & Roger Harrison) have engaged lawyers to launch frivolous and unsubstantiated attacks on two members (one serving Treasurer, one former Treasurer), both of whom have been bold and honest enough to call this board out for their appalling behaviour.

Surely the day has come for the President and his bloc of four to resign before even further reputational damage and financial loss is wrought upon the WIA.

On a positive note the WIA Reform Group has agreed to participate in mediation, to be facilitated by Christopher Platt VK5CP. Given his professional capacity, Mr Platt is well placed to oversee the process and ensure it has the best possible chance of success.

However, against the backdrop of the current activities of this Board it appears the time for any rational mediation has passed.

Nonetheless, we have agreed to participate and will do so in good faith of an acceptable outcome. Surely, the best outcome for the WIA and all members would be for Directors Wait, Swainston, Harrison and Broomhead to resign and save the members the costs associated with running this meeting.

Our WIA urgently needs a new board. Please support the call for a General Meeting by reading and signing the letter at this link.

Many of your fellow members have already signed.

Please make your voice heard for the good of our hobby. Please read the background material and call for these directors to step down. The more signatures we get, the stronger our message.

We are not alone. Many will recall the imbroglio the RSGB experienced some years ago. The HF 4WD Club (Australia) is also experiencing some governance issues. The South Africa Amateur Radio League suffered its own problems last year.

Our board is tearing itself and the WIA to pieces. This simply cannot be allowed to continue. We respectfully call on the President and his majority bloc to resign immediately and save the WIA further reputational damage and financial loses.

We call on them to resign rather than proceed to the General Meeting calling for their removal. This meeting will cost members up to $10,000 (postage, printing and venue hire).

An easy way to avoid this expense is for the named directors to resign immediately, thereby allowing the board to appoint interim directors and commence the job of rebuilding our WIA.

Our WIA urgently needs a new board. Please support the call for a General Meeting by reading and signing the letter at this link.

Many of your fellow members have already signed.

Please make your voice heard for the good of our hobby. Please read the background material and call for these directors to step down.